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Based on its own charter, OpenAI should surrender the race
2 months ago
- OpenAI's charter includes a self-sacrifice clause to avoid an AGI development race and assist safety-conscious projects if they lead.
- Sam Altman's AGI timeline predictions have accelerated, with recent claims suggesting AGI may already be achieved, shifting focus to ASI.
- Current AI model rankings show OpenAI's GPT-5.4 trailing behind competitors like Anthropic and Google, which are considered safety-conscious.
- The self-sacrifice clause's triggering condition ('better-than-even chance of success in the next two years') appears to be met, suggesting OpenAI should assist competitors.
- The situation highlights the conflict between idealism and economic incentives, marketing vs. actions, and evolving AGI/ASI definitions.
How Codex Is Built
2 months ago
- OpenAI's Codex is a multi-agent coding assistant used by over a million developers weekly, with a 5x increase in usage since January.
- The Codex desktop app for macOS was launched in February, described by CEO Sam Altman as OpenAI's 'most loved internal product'.
- GPT-5.3-Codex is the first model that helped create itself, showcasing advancements in AI self-improvement.
- Codex was built with Rust for performance, correctness, and engineering quality, contrasting with Claude Code's TypeScript approach.
- The core agent and CLI of Codex are open source, emphasizing transparency and community involvement.
- Codex operates on a state machine model with an agent loop that includes prompt assembly, inference, response streaming, and tool calls.
- Safety measures include sandboxing to restrict network and filesystem access by default, ensuring secure usage.
- Over 90% of Codex's code is generated by Codex itself, highlighting its self-referential development capabilities.
- Engineers on the Codex team manage multiple parallel agents for tasks like feature implementation, code review, and bug fixes.
- Agent Skills extend Codex's capabilities, with over 100 internal skills like security best-practices and Datadog integration.
- Tiered code review involves AI reviews for non-critical code and mandatory human reviews for key components.
- Unique engineering practices include AGENTS.md for AI navigation, structured code for agent success, and Codex testing itself.
- New engineers onboard by pairing with experienced team members, emphasizing rapid adaptation to Codex's development style.
- OpenAI employees have unlimited access to Codex, fostering extensive use and innovation within the company.
- Research at OpenAI involves practical applications, like SQ Mah's transition from software engineering to research via the Vesuvius Challenge.
Family of child injured in Canada school shooting sues OpenAI
2 months ago
- Family of a girl injured in a Canadian school shooting sues OpenAI, alleging it knew about the suspect's plans but didn't alert authorities.
- 12-year-old Maya Gebala was critically injured in the attack on February 10 in Tumbler Ridge and remains hospitalized.
- OpenAI banned the suspect's initial ChatGPT account in June 2025 but did not notify Canadian police.
- The lawsuit claims the suspect discussed gun violence scenarios with ChatGPT, which employees flagged but no action was taken.
- OpenAI defends its decision, stating the account didn't meet its threshold for credible imminent harm.
- The suspect opened a second account and continued planning violence, leading to the tragic shooting.
- OpenAI pledges to improve protocols, including better detection systems and direct law enforcement contacts.
- Canada's AI minister acknowledges OpenAI's willingness to improve but awaits a detailed implementation plan.
Encyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI for copyright and trademark infringement
2 months ago
- Encyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI for copyright and trademark infringement.
- Lawsuit claims OpenAI used Britannica's copyrighted content at a massive scale for training AI models.
- ChatGPT allegedly reproduces Britannica's articles verbatim or partially in responses.
- OpenAI accused of trademark infringement by generating false attributions to Britannica.
- Britannica seeks injunction and unspecified monetary damages.
- OpenAI defends its models, stating they are trained on publicly available data under fair use.
- Britannica previously sued AI company Perplexity for similar reasons.
- OpenAI also faces a copyright lawsuit from The New York Times.
Microsoft considers suing Amazon and OpenAI over $50B deal
2 months ago
- Microsoft is considering legal action against Amazon and OpenAI over a $50 billion deal related to OpenAI's Frontier AI product.
- Microsoft argues the deal could violate a key clause in their exclusive cloud agreement requiring OpenAI's models to run through Azure.
- Amazon and OpenAI claim to have found a workaround, but Microsoft executives dispute this.
- A Microsoft source stated they are prepared to sue if the contract is breached, expressing confidence in their legal position.
- OpenAI, aiming for an IPO this year, is seeking to reduce Microsoft's control while scaling its operations.
- Microsoft views OpenAI as both a partner and a competitor in the AI space.
Astral to Join OpenAI
2 months ago
- Astral was founded to enhance programming productivity with fast, robust, and intuitive Python tools.
- Astral has entered an agreement to join OpenAI's Codex team to further its mission.
- Astral's tools, including Ruff, uv, and ty, have grown to hundreds of millions of monthly downloads.
- Open source remains central to Astral's philosophy, and OpenAI will continue supporting these tools post-acquisition.
- The integration aims to push the frontier of AI and software development, focusing on productivity.
- Astral's team, investors, and users are thanked for their support and trust in the journey.
Thoughts on OpenAI acquiring Astral and uv/ruff/ty
2 months ago
- OpenAI acquires Astral, the company behind uv, ruff, and ty, key open-source Python tools.
- Astral's team will join OpenAI's Codex team, continuing to support and develop open-source tools.
- uv, a Python environment management tool, is Astral's most impactful project with over 126 million monthly downloads.
- ruff (Python linter/formatter) and ty (fast type checker) are also significant but less critical than uv.
- The acquisition may influence OpenAI's competition with Anthropic, which acquired Bun JavaScript runtime.
- Astral's Series A and B funding rounds were previously unannounced, with investors now gaining stakes in OpenAI.
- Open-source community discusses the risks of VC-backed ownership of key infrastructure, with forking as a potential exit strategy.
- OpenAI's recent acquisitions include Promptfoo, OpenClaw, and Crixet, showing a trend of expanding their ecosystem.
OpenAI to nearly double headcount this year
a month ago
- OpenAI plans to nearly double its headcount to 8,000 employees this year.
- The company is ramping up efforts to sell its AI products to businesses.
- OpenAI is losing business customers to rival Anthropic, despite ChatGPT's popularity among individual users.
- The hiring spree occurs amid a dampened US labor market with layoffs and hiring pauses.
- Goldman Sachs predicts an increase in demand for workers with AI knowledge and skills.
- The AI boom is also creating more blue-collar construction roles tied to data center buildout.
MIT tech review: OpenAI is Building an Automated Researcher
a month ago
- OpenAI is focusing on building a fully automated AI researcher, aiming to tackle large, complex problems independently.
- The company plans to debut an 'AI research intern' by September and a full multi-agent research system by 2028.
- Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI's chief scientist, leads this initiative, emphasizing models that can work autonomously for extended periods.
- OpenAI's Codex is an early version of this vision, already used by technical staff for tasks like coding and document analysis.
- The goal is to extend Codex's capabilities beyond coding to broader scientific and real-world problem-solving.
- OpenAI acknowledges risks, such as misuse or unintended consequences, and is developing monitoring techniques like chain-of-thought.
- The company stresses the need for policy involvement to manage the societal impact of powerful AI systems.
- Despite progress, OpenAI remains cautious, deploying powerful models in sandboxes to prevent harm.
- The initiative reflects OpenAI's mission to ensure AI benefits humanity, though AGI remains a distant, debated goal.
Update on the OpenAI Foundation
a month ago
- OpenAI Foundation's mission is to ensure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.
- AI has potential to unlock benefits in medical breakthroughs, scientific discovery, education, creativity, productivity, and public services.
- The Foundation will invest at least $1 billion in life sciences, curing diseases, jobs, economic impact, AI resilience, and community programs.
- Initial focus areas in life sciences include AI for Alzheimer’s, public data for health, and accelerating progress on high-mortality diseases.
- Jobs and Economic Impact program aims to address challenges and opportunities AI brings to work and the economy.
- AI Resilience program focuses on AI impact on children & youth, biosecurity, and AI model safety.
- Community support includes grants and initiatives to help people navigate AI-driven change.
- New team members include leaders in life sciences, AI resilience, civil society, finance, and operations.
- The Foundation is searching for an Executive Director and will continue expanding its team.
- Future updates will focus on scaling solutions and transforming lives through AI.
Disney Exits OpenAI Deal After AI Giant Shutters Sora
a month ago
- OpenAI is shutting down its Sora AI video app shortly after its launch.
- Disney is exiting its $1 billion deal with OpenAI, which included licensing Disney characters for Sora.
- OpenAI will provide details on preserving user work and timelines for the app and API shutdown.
- Sora initially allowed free use of established IP and actors, leading to backlash and subsequent policy changes.
- Disney had planned to integrate Sora's tech into Disney+ but will now seek other AI partnerships.
- Google emerges as a dominant player in AI video generation, though it lacks deals with IP holders.
- Disney respects OpenAI's decision and remains open to future AI collaborations.
OpenAI shutting down Sora app
a month ago
- OpenAI announced the shutdown of its Sora AI video-generation app.
- The closure comes ahead of OpenAI's expected initial public stock offering.
- OpenAI faced competition from Anthropic, which focuses on text and code generation.
- Sora's launch in 2024 raised concerns in the entertainment industry about displacing human creators.
- A second-generation Sora model with improved capabilities led to backlash from Hollywood.
- Disney had a three-year deal with OpenAI to use Sora for AI-generated videos, which is now canceled.
- Disney pledged to invest $1 billion in OpenAI as part of the agreement.
- OpenAI is reallocating computing resources from Sora to more lucrative tasks like coding and text generation.
- OpenAI recently raised $110 billion, valuing the company at around $730 billion.
OpenAI announces plans to shut down its Sora video generator
a month ago
- OpenAI is shutting down Sora, its video generation app.
- The announcement followed a Wall Street Journal report and a company social media post.
- OpenAI thanked users and acknowledged the disappointment caused by the news.
- The shutdown aligns with OpenAI's refocus on business and productivity applications.
- Disney's $1 billion investment in OpenAI for Sora integration is now in question.
Disney cancels $1B OpenAI partnership amid Sora shutdown plans
a month ago
- OpenAI has announced plans to shut down its Sora video-generating app, leading to the cancellation of a $1 billion licensing partnership with Disney.
- Disney expressed respect for OpenAI's decision to shift priorities and acknowledged the constructive collaboration, stating they will continue exploring AI responsibly.
- The Disney-OpenAI deal, announced in December, would have allowed the use of over 200 Disney characters in Sora-generated videos and included a $1 billion equity investment by Disney.
- The deal was never finalized, with reports indicating no money was exchanged and that OpenAI's strategic shift caused the partnership to collapse.
- OpenAI's sudden shutdown of Sora reportedly blindsided Disney, with some describing it as a 'big rug-pull,' despite recent updates to Sora's safety standards.

Hasty Briefsbeta

#openai

Based on its own charter, OpenAI should surrender the race

How Codex Is Built

Family of child injured in Canada school shooting sues OpenAI

Encyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI for copyright and trademark infringement

Microsoft considers suing Amazon and OpenAI over $50B deal

Astral to Join OpenAI

Thoughts on OpenAI acquiring Astral and uv/ruff/ty

OpenAI to nearly double headcount this year

MIT tech review: OpenAI is Building an Automated Researcher

Update on the OpenAI Foundation

Disney Exits OpenAI Deal After AI Giant Shutters Sora

OpenAI shutting down Sora app

OpenAI announces plans to shut down its Sora video generator

Disney cancels $1B OpenAI partnership amid Sora shutdown plans